


seventeen

by singsongsung



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: 1990s, Gen, High School, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung
Summary: Stevie can’t help the shape her mouth makes - notquitea smile, but something close to it. A couple years ago, Twyla got boobs (much better boobs than Stevie has, not that she cares), and Stevie’s seen guys checking out Twyla’s legs when she wears that little jean skirt, but Twyla is stillTwyla,the exact same as she was at seven years old, eyes huge in her freckled face as she watched Stevie stealthily open an unsold pack of Girl Guide cookies and pull out two.A moment between friends, by the field at Schitt's Creek High.
Relationships: Stevie Budd & Twyla Sands
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	seventeen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiblioPan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiblioPan/gifts).



> Wishing the happiest of birthdays to BiblioPan! Thank you for your kindness, encouragement, and all-around loveliness.
> 
> Thank you to sonlali for beta-reading!

_i went forth_  
_with an age-old_  
_desire to please_  
_on the edge of seventeen_  
\- stevie nicks, "the edge of seventeen"

The weather - sun high and hot, breeze absent, not a cloud to be found in the bright, blue sky - is at odds with Stevie’s mood. It’s also at odds with her wardrobe: sitting on the bleachers by the field, where there isn’t any shade, she’s sweating beneath her plaid flannel shirt.

Instead of shrugging off her shirt or even unbuttoning it, she adjusts her headphones on her ears and turns up the volume on her walkman to distract herself. _Come down, and waste away with me, down with me._

Stevie’s felt resentful toward her hometown, on and off, for at least a decade, and Schitt’s Creek’s weather, bizarrely temperate for northern Ontario, remains one of her greatest annoyances. Ever since she learned about pathetic fallacy during the Shakespeare unit in her grade nine English class, she’s felt strongly that she’d be happier living somewhere with dark, rolling cloud cover, occasionally punctured by rumblings of thunder, rain falling overnight so that the air in the mornings was heavy, its weight pushing against her as she trudged to school.

She sees movement out of the corner of her eye and turns toward it, only to find the walking embodiment of Schitt’s Creek’s weather strolling toward her in a denim skirt and a coral-pink tee. Twyla’s got one thumb hooked under the strap of her backpack, and she lifts her other hand to wave. Her ponytail swings cheerfully as she walks. Stevie doesn’t bother waving back.

Twyla practically skips up the bleachers to join her. “I didn’t know this was your free!”

Stevie can’t help the shape her mouth makes - not _quite_ a smile, but something close to it. A couple years ago, Twyla got boobs (much better boobs than Stevie has, not that she cares), and Stevie’s seen guys checking out Twyla’s legs when she wears that little jean skirt, but Twyla is still _Twyla_ , the exact same as she was at seven years old, eyes huge in her freckled face as she watched Stevie stealthily open an unsold pack of Girl Guide cookies and pull out two. It’s obviously Twyla’s free period, because it would never occur to Twyla to leave the library otherwise.

“Nope,” Stevie says easily. She removes her headphones, letting them rest around her neck. “First period was my free.”

Twyla’s lips part in surprise. “What are you going to tell Mrs. Armstrong?”

“Mrs. Armstrong could not give less of a shit if I’m sitting in the library doing pointless calculus problems. She’s reading _Bridget Jones’s Diary_ behind her desk.”

Twyla grins, a little laugh bubbling out of her mouth. “Really?”

Stevie nods. “I signed in with her this morning; that’s all that matters.” She kicks the toe of her shoe against the bleacher seat below them; its paint is peeling, badly. “I can’t believe they’re making us show up here.”

“Well.” Twyla rifles through her backpack and extracts a Ziploc bag full of pretzels. “Everyone else is _technically_ learning, too.”

“You know that’s not true.” Stevie grabs a handful of pretzels when Twyla holds the bag out to her. “They’re fucking off, and they’re getting drunk in their hotel rooms at night. Well - ” Stevie pauses. “Maybe not Ted.” She points a pretzel at Twyla. “But _everyone_ else. Jess is probably trying to sneak into the casino.”

Twyla giggles. “No way she gets in.”

“I hope they walk her out and right to Mr. Bergen,” Stevie says, referring to their ancient and irritable history teacher.

Twyla laughs again, but it’s short-lived, fading quickly as her gaze drifts away from Stevie, her eyes roving over the empty field. She pops another pretzel into her mouth and chews slowly, contemplatively. Stevie can hear the faintest sounds of the Smashing Pumpkins emanating from the headphones around her neck; she reaches over and presses the pause button on her walkman.

The Ziploc bag crinkles in Twyla’s hands as her grip on it tightens. “I bet they’re having fun,” she says quietly, eyes still fixed on some faraway point.

Stevie scoffs. “No fucking way,” she says. It comes out with far more heat than she intended - the sentiment doesn’t sound quite so casual, bitten out like that. “I’ve been to Niagara, Twyla. It’s boring.” She leaves out the minor detail that this was over a decade ago, when she was three or four years old. Her memories are hazy, but she does have the definite sense that she was unimpressed.

Shrugging, Twyla dips her chin down, looking at her shoes. Her scuffed up Chuck Taylors are white; Stevie’s are black. “I thought it would be really beautiful,” she says. Her voice is light, airy, like she hopes her words will float away. “Going under the Falls.”

“Put on a poncho and stand under your shower at home,” Stevie says. “Same thing.”

Twyla glances over at her. Her lashes are lowered, and the corners of her mouth are tucked downward. It sucks to see Twyla’s face like that. Stevie’s own mouth twists into a grimace-like shape that she hopes conveys empathy.

There are still pretzels left. Stevie reaches for the bag, and Twyla lets her take it.

She shoves three pretzels into her mouth, chews, and swallows, before she asks, “What happened?”

Twyla picks at the stitching on the hem of her skirt. “My mom’s not around right now. My cousin Shelley signed the permission form. She’s twenty-two, but… Ms. Marchand said she doesn’t count, she’s not my legal guardian.” Her sigh is long and tired. “You?”

“Maureen went to some kind of hotel conference in Nevada last month. She hasn’t come back yet.” Stevie’s shrug is meant to be nonchalant, but it feels tight in her shoulders. “And there’s no one else, so.”

Twyla nods. They’re both quiet while Stevie finishes off the pretzels, at which point Twyla asks, “Want an orange?”

“No,” Stevie says. “Thanks, though.” She hands the Ziploc bag back to Twyla, who flattens the air out, folds it neatly into quarters, and tucks it back into her backpack.

“It’s so - ” _Maddening. Heartbreaking. Hurtful._ “Stupid,” Stevie huffs. “We’re both almost eighteen. We could be doing anything at home, and there’s no one there to check. But god forbid we go on a trip to fucking Niagara Falls without a _guardian’s_ permission.”

“I know.” Twyla reaches out and touches Stevie’s elbow, so briefly that Stevie doesn’t even have time to bristle. “But… it’s like you said!” she adds, because Twyla is a glass-half-full kind of person and always has been. “We’re almost eighteen. Once we graduate, things will be different. We’ll be masters of our fates.”

There’s something so incongruous about Twyla quoting “Invictus” to her on the dilapidated bleachers outside Schitt’s Creek High that Stevie almost laughs, but the heavy feeling in her chest won’t let her. “Will we, though?” she asks.

Twyla blinks. “Of course we will.”

“I don’t know, Twyla,” Stevie sighs, kicking at the bleacher below them again. “Don’t you ever wake up in this town and feel like… like you know exactly what every day of the rest of your life is going to be like?”

Twyla shakes her head and reminds Stevie, “You’re leaving. You’re going to Western.”

“Yeah.” Stevie looks up at the sun and lets it sting her eyes. “But even if I keep my scholarship and stay there for all four years… Maureen will want me to come back.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to.”

“Doesn’t it?” Stevie looks down, spots of colour dancing in front of her eyes as she blinks away moisture. “She’ll lay the guilt on; she always does. And it’ll be… I’ve spent the last three summers working at the motel. I could fold towels in my sleep. What else am I going to do, move to Toronto and live with two roommates I don’t know and probably hate while working as some asshole’s assistant?”

Twyla angles her body more directly toward Stevie’s and says, “You could move _anywhere_. You could do _anything_.”

Stevie looks at Twyla, at her earnest eyes, her bright optimism. She envies it and resents it in equal measure. “Stasis is the easiest thing,” she murmurs.

“I don’t believe that,” Twyla says, soft and sincere. She holds Stevie’s gaze for a moment before she looks out over the field once again, chewing absently on her bottom lip. “Let’s go to the creek,” she says suddenly.

Stevie half-frowns. “What?”

“Let’s go to the creek,” Twyla repeats, more determinedly, like she’s made the decision for them both and won’t hear any arguments.

Squinting at her suspiciously, Stevie says, “Your free period’s gotta be almost over.”

“Whatever,” Twyla says, sliding both her arms through the straps of her backpack. “It’s like you said: Mrs. Armstrong’s not even paying attention.”

Stevie’s jaw drops, and only about a third of her shock is put on. “Twyla Louise Millicent Sands,” she gasps. “Are you proposing we play _hooky_?”

“Stevie Christina Budd,” Twyla returns, standing and planting her hands on her hips. “I just told you, I don’t believe in stasis.”

Giving her head an incredulous shake, Stevie asks, “Have you been bodysnatched?”

Twyla rolls her eyes, which Stevie can’t help but be charmed by - Twyla’s not a big eye-roller. “It’s hot. I want to go swimming.”

Stevie stays seated and arches up an eyebrow. “Do you have a bathing suit?”

“I don’t need one,” Twyla says blithely, cracking a mischievous grin and waggling her eyebrows back at Stevie. “Do _you_?”

“Twyla, are you being ser - ”

“Come _on_!” Twyla interrupts. She grabs both of Stevie’s hands and pulls.

Stevie lets herself be hauled up, and Twyla’s grin widens, full of satisfaction. Stevie watches the sun create sparkling flecks of gold in Twyla’s auburn hair and allows herself to revel, for a moment, in the warmth of the day, the cloudless sky.

“Okay,” she says on a laugh. “Okay, okay.”

Twyla leads the way down the bleachers. Stevie trails behind, juggling her backpack between each of her hands as she slips out of her flannel shirt and ties it around her waist. The feeling of the sun beating down on her shoulders, left bare by her tank top, is not entirely unpleasant.

As they trudge across the field, Twyla tips her head back, spreads her arms, and spins in a slow circle. Stevie watches her with a faint sense of amusement, something like fondness blooming in her chest.

When she stops twirling, Twyla flashes Stevie another smile. “Wanna race?” she asks, like they’re first graders, not high school seniors.

“Uh, no?” Stevie says, but Twyla’s already taken off. Stevie stares at Twyla’s back for an instant and then starts moving on instinct, giving chase without much input from her brain.

They run the remaining length of the field, and right into a cluster of trees. Twyla’s hair streams out behind her, strands flicking against Stevie’s face when she gains ground, and Stevie finds herself laughing into the breeze that brushes, like a friendly touch, along her cheeks.

fin. 


End file.
